The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools -
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope
But he said nought to me."

`I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
"Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain
Which to their corses came again
But a troop of spirits blest:

For when it dawned -they dropped their arms
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound
Then darted to the sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

"This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineers
That come from a far country.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve -
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk
`Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair
That signal made but now?'

`Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said -
`And they answered not our cheer!
The planks looked warped! and see those sails
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them
Unless perchance it were.

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below
That eats the she-wolf's young.'

`Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look -
(The Pilot made reply)
I am afeared' -`Push on, push on!'
Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound
Which sky and ocean smote
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.

What is this?

The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was written by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge sometime around 1797-98 and is considered a seminal work of the Romantic movement. The poem appeared in the first edition of Coleridge and William Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads in 1798.

The poem is thought by some to have been partly inspired by the much lauded explorations of Captain James Cook (discoverer of the Virgin Islands, among other things), which were very much the talk of Coleridge’s time.

The version transcribed here is based on Coleridge’s 1834 revision of the poem. This version is missing significant portions of Coleridge’s framing text, including the Latin epigraph (opening quotation) and the gloss notes. The 1817 edition published in Coleridge’s Sibylline Leaves with epigraph and gloss notes is posted here, with very few differences from the 1834 edition.